


of the war

by ceraunos



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Possibly?????, arguably platonic, but also can be seen as not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22020064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceraunos/pseuds/ceraunos
Summary: A series of conversations after Charles Town, a shifting of ground between them.black sails gift exchange entry for 2019.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Charles Vane
Comments: 5
Kudos: 51
Collections: Black Sails Gift Exchange 2019





	of the war

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sweety_Mutant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/gifts).



> this is my gift exchange entry for sweetymutant on tumblr x I thought I'd challenge myself to write flint/vane for the first time since you said you liked that... it was harder than I expected but I hope you enjoy!

1.

They are different beasts with different wars; this Flint has known from the start.

Yet, there’s a moment, in the still of gunfire, when they’re both completely in sync; burning arms dragging the oars through the water like additional limbs through treacle. Flint turns, peers through the smoke that’s shrouding them, and sees the line of strain through Vane’s back, the barely perceptible effort gathering in the set of his shoulders, the part of his lips. Vane closes his eyes as he pulls back the oar, reaching further and faster. Flint’s oar stumbles, catches on the crease of a wave and falls dead on the surface, the boat twists to the right.

‘C’mon,’ Vane mutters through gritted teeth, but Flint is no longer watching him. On the horizon civilisation burns.

2.

‘This war you’ve started,’ Vane says, watching the way Flint’s cheek twitches, just a little, ‘you’re expecting us all to join you? To follow _you_.’

‘Yes,’ Flint only says, keeping his eyes on the map between them, tracing a line through narrow blue. They both know there isn’t a reason for Vane asking the question, or a need for Flint to answer. For the first time, perhaps ever, they both have exactly the same objective; fuck civilisation.

It feels oddly powerful beyond just their new shared direction though, this strange truce they’ve found, like something cataclysmically significant has shifted between their feet, except neither of them know quite what it is yet.

‘You realise half the island would rather see you dead.’

‘Half the island has always wanted me dead, it’s hardly a new predicament.’

‘You’ll convince them, then?’ Old ironic contempt barbs Vane’s statement, although the thorns feel duller than usual.

‘I won’t have to.’

There is something about the look in Flint’s eyes, the way the words seem to stick to his teeth, the cold calculation of it glints more dangerously than any sword.

Behind them, beside the window of Flint’s cabin, John Silver stirs in pain induced sleep.

3.

‘You mentioned submission,’ Flint says, while they wait for the hour to pass until Rackham will be on the road. He feels the change between them loosen the ground under their feet, again. He gestures to the pile of broken crockery, the doll’s house in the corner, his own stack of poetry abandoned on a shelf. ‘You think this is submission?’

‘Is it not? This is everything you’re fighting against.’

‘This is freedom to _choose._ ’

‘To choose to surrender.’

‘To choose not to fight. To live beyond their walls, not by hiding just outside them, but because the walls no longer exist.’

‘And in doing so you would choose to become one of them.’

‘I would choose to live as I wished without fear. As would you.’

Vane sighs. In the muted afternoon light, Flint notices that for the first time Vane looks as tired as he does.

‘Thank you,’ he says, after a moment. Vane waits. ‘For Teach. It wasn’t an easy choice.’

He thinks he sees Vane nod, a little.

‘This is her war,’ Vane says eventually. ‘The women from Charles Town.’

‘And her husband’s. Or at least it was, once.’

‘Oh?’ Vane says, and it’s missing the motivation that once would have needled for any advantage over Flint. Even so, Flint shakes his head.

‘You made a good speech that day.’

Vane shrugs. ‘I must have learnt something from Jack, then.’

Flint laughs, and automatically scans out of the window. Below a tree Anne is half hidden, her back to them. Further on Billy is pacing by what was once a vegetable garden. Flint wonders, briefly, if they’re doing the right thing. Vane runs his finger around a glass, and the sound rings through the piano, vibrating a single string in a ghostly harmonic. For a second Miranda is standing on the balcony watching this funny tableau play out with a gentle smile. Flint blinks and she disappears.

‘What is it that they have to cause you fear?’

Flint feels his something deep inside him lock shut, the ground rising up to meet his soles, hard and unyielding.

‘You know mine,’ Vane says, raising an eyebrow as Flint’s eyes flick towards his chest where he is, undoubtably subconsciously, rearranging his shirt. Flint had seen it not long after they first met, during a glorified bar brawl, and had understood immediately. He had wondered, then, as he does now, how much of whatever is unknowable about Vane belongs to that one spot.

‘The last spectre of my fear died in Charles Town. You saw it happen under my own hand. There is nothing left that England could present that would concern me. Not anymore.’

‘Nothing left but hate.’

‘Something like that.’

‘What did they take?’

‘Everything,’ Flint spits, and makes it clear in the grinding of his teeth that this conversation is over. Except, when he turns around, Vane is only watching him with a curiously unreadable expression. It makes Flint’s palms itch. From the corner of his eye he sees Billy head back towards the house and knows it’s time.

He feels it like a shudder through his spine, the way Vane looks at him still, not moving.

Billy knocks on the wall. Flint nods.

‘Ready?’

Vane nods, picking up his gun. Flint hadn’t realised he’d taken it off.

‘We will win, this war of yours,’ Vane says quietly as they step through the door.

‘This war of ours,’ Flint says, not long after, and by the faint brush of a shoulder against his own, he assumes Vane hears.

~

He wonders, then, if this fluid, hidden state between them feels like the possibility of hope, of change. Later, after a rope, a noose, and yet another sacrifice, he realises it meant something else, too. He feels it in the unexpected loss, an absent sense of regret without a home; the potential for something more than they dared let grow. 


End file.
